Scaled-down theatre experience fitting for scaled-down Copperfield

Anyone attempting to make a two-hour film version of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield is courting disaster because of the length and complexity of the plot, the hundred-plus characters, and the intricacy and frequent wit of the prose. So I approached Armando Iannucci’s film adaptation with interest and some trepidation.

This was my first cinematic theatre outing since the COVID-19 crisis began in March. Fittingly masked and hand-sanitized, a dozen of us sat scattered throughout the International Village theatre. Without the usual distractions of whispered conversations, candy wrappers, and popcorn, the experience was scaled down from what was once “normal” film viewing. In fact, in many ways it symbolized the film itself.

Of necessity, Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield cuts entire sections of the original plot and many of the characters, losing in the process Dickens’ essential concerns over British schools (the sadistic Mr. Creakle is skipped over) and debtor’s prison.

At the same time, those familiar with the novel will regret the omission of such characters as the “willing” Barkis, the delightful Traddles, and the entertainingly opportunistic Mrs. Crupps. Similarly dismaying is that the urbanely optimistic Mr. Micawber is turned into something of an imbecilic, uncontrolled, and physically unrecognizable travesty, as performed by Hugh Laurie.

Even worse is the portrayal of Dora, Copperfield’s first wife – a heroine already too saccharine in the novel but here so nauseatingly artificial that one questions the sanity of the hero as he succumbs to her supposed charms (as well as her curls).

It’s probably best to forget whatever one may know of the book because Iannucci and his co-writers have reinvented the work. A small amount of the action is faithful to the novel, but much is completely altered.

One quickly becomes accustomed to the initially surprising multiracial casting. The star Dev (Slumdog Millionaire) Patel introduces the narration as Dickens and then becomes David Copperfield. As Agnes Wickfield, Copperfield’s second wife, Rosalind Eleazar offers the film’s most authentic performance.

The breakneck pace, especially at the opening, turns comedy into farce and buffoonery. Among the characters the film caricatures is Copperfield himself, who frequently comes across as hapless, at times an annoying nitwit. His aunt, Betsy Trotwood, a woman whose formidable appearance belies her inner warmth, is turned into a decidedly cloying personage as played by Tilda Swinton, clothed in lovely warm-coloured dresses instead of the restrictive black garb described by the author.

A garbled attempt at a feel-good ending results in a hurried climax that completely betrays the original. A fan of David Copperfield since I was 11, I certainly did not leave the theatre in a good mood. Despite some colourful scenes and some impressive scenic recreation of Dickens’ world, Iannucci’s riff on a classic novel is neither a good adaptation nor a satisfactory movie in itself.

It was, however, gratifying to be able once again to see a movie in a theatre!